


Last Christmas

by candysams



Series: 12 Days of Banana Fish-mas [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: 12 Days of Banana Fish-Mas, Angst, Christmas, Day 1: Tree, Fluff, Gen, MOSTLY FLUFF I PROMISE, One-Shot, brief mentions of ash, mappa put nadia into the anime :(, nadia/charlie is mostly background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 08:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candysams/pseuds/candysams
Summary: Nadia comes home to find her boys decorating the Christmas tree.Written for Day 1: Tree of 12 Days of Banana Fish-mas (hosted by @/softaslans on twitter!)





	Last Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> If mappa won't create Nadia content I sure as hell will! Merry early Christmas!

“Shorter, I’m back!” Nadia toed her shoes off at the front door, lining them up next to her brother’s. She spotted a pair of smaller purple sneakers on the other side of Shorter’s vans, a sure sign that they had a young guest staying the night.

“Nadia!” Sing didn’t hesitate when he heard her, bursting out of the living room and barreling towards her, nearly knocking her off her feet. It was only through sheer luck that she didn’t drop the bags in her hands, leftovers from the restaurant.

“Slow down, Sing, or she’ll spill hot soup on your head!” Shorter bellowed, ducking his head slightly to fit under the doorway and taking the food from Nadia’s hands so she could properly hug her cousin.

“Sorry!” Sing quickly apologized, grinning when Shorter bumped the back of his head with the contents of a bag in order to ruffle his short hair.

“It’s okay, Sing.” Nadia ruffled his short locks as well, feeling the small difference in length since she had last seen him. She would have to give him a trim tonight, unless he wanted to start growing it out again. “I didn’t know you were coming, I would’ve made something for dinner instead of just bringing home leftovers.”

“That’s okay! I haven’t eaten at Chang Dai in so long, I kind of miss it.” Sing grinned. He grabbed Nadia’s hand and pulled her through the beaded curtain into the living room, where she nearly tripped over an open box of Christmas ornaments. “Check it out!” He let go of her hand and stood in front of the Christmas tree, the green peak towering a foot over his head. The bottom half of the tree was already covered in ornaments of different sizes and colors, and a half-finished string of popcorn was waiting on the ground.

“Wow, it looks great so far!” Nadia praised. She had been skeptical when Shorter and Ash had carried the already-dying tree in yesterday, covered in snow and pine needles. She had almost made them bring it back outside, but Shorter had promised to clean up the melting puddles and stray pine needles and Ash had gifted a box of ornaments for them to use, since it was their first Christmas tree.

“You get to decorate the top half, since you’re taller than me.” Sing explained. He had left exactly half of the ornaments in their boxes for her to use, an even mixture of candy canes and handmade paper snowflakes with Ash’s undoubtedly expensive globes of glittering color.

Nadia approached the boxes, grabbing a couple snowflakes in one hand and a delicate purple ornament in the other. “Help me out here, Sing. You can still reach some of it, can’t you?” She teased. Sing’s eyes shone as he jumped up, grabbing two ornaments and reaching up, rising onto his tip-toes to hang them on a tall branch.

“Aw, how come Nadia gets to put up the decorations while I get stuck stringing the popcorn?” Shorter returned with a serving tray carrying a piping-hot bowl of wonton soup and a steaming plate of rice and chicken for them to share. He snatched the first bite of chicken before plopping back down on the floor and shoving a needle through two pieces of popcorn.

“Here, you can decorate while Sing and I eat.” Nadia pushed a small box of paper stars in Shorter’s arms, taking a seat in front of the coffee table to eat. Sing joined her, laughing at Shorter and helping Nadia pick the best pieces of popcorn for the string by eating all the rest.

They spent hours in front of the tree, eating and decorating and laughing, spilling popcorn and rice and breaking a glass ornament when Sing got too excited and Shorter too rambunctious and Nadia was caught in between. Shorter swept up the glass with a couple pieces of paper and the incident was forgotten in favor of wrapping the popcorn string around the tree.

“Only one decoration left.” Shorter said, reaching into the bottom of the decoration box to pull it out. They didn’t have a string of lights for the tree, but they did have a light-up star tree topper, also courtesy of Ash. It was a Moravian star made of embellished gold with frosted glass to disperse the yellow light. Shorter plugged it into the wall and it lit up the room just as much as Sing’s excited laughter had.

“Come on, Sing!” Nadia nudged Sing, who was toeing the ground like he wasn’t interested, towards Shorter, who passed him the star and then picked him up from under his arms, giving him just enough height to balance the star on top of the tree.

“Perfect! Couldn’t have done it better myself!” Shorter declared. Sing beamed, wiggling in Shorter’s grip until his feet reached solid ground.

“Good job, boys.” Nadia ruffled both their hairs, bringing them in for a hug. Shorter kissed her cheek, and Sing jumped to his toes to do the same.

“This was awesome! I wish Lao and I had a tree.” Sing wistfully said, gazing up at the glowing star.

“You can bring him over tomorrow to see it.” Nadia offered, gently nudging his shoulder. “We can watch a Christmas movie too.”

“Wow, really?” Sing’s eyes were wide, energy thrumming through every bone in his body. “Thanks, Nadia!”

Shorter chuckled, tucking his sister under his arm. “It feels like a real Christmas in here, huh?” He murmured, bare eyes fixed on the lights.

Nadia nodded, feeling the soft, worn fabric of Shorter’s sweatshirt brush against her cheek. “Our first real Christmas, with our first Christmas tree.”

* * *

Pine needles greeted her at the front door.

Nadia kicked off her shoes and followed the trail to the living room, where a large, aromatic tree stood proudly in front of the windows.

“Nadia, babe! You’re home!” Charlie peered at her from behind the tree, an excited grin on his face. “I wanted to surprise you with a tree, since we didn’t have one last year! What do you think?”

She couldn’t help the tears brimming in her eyes, threatening to roll down her cheeks and cause Charlie to abort his sweet and thoughtful gesture. There would be no Sing this year, the energy in his soul dialed down to a small hum with the loss of his brother, a wall built over his heart that made him reluctant to be around Charlie. There would be no Ash to help carry the tree into her apartment and deliver a box of pretty ornaments in her favorite colors with nothing in return but a kiss on the cheek. There would be no Shorter, no begging and pleading to be allowed to keep a dying tree, no buttery fingerprints left on the table as he strung up a line of popcorn for decoration.

“Nadia? Baby, what’s wrong?” Charlie was in front of her, hands on her shoulders, a guilty look in his eye. “I’m sorry, I’ll get rid of it if you want.”

“No, keep it. It’s perfect.” She fell into his chest, burying her face in the stiff material of his dress shirt. He smelled like candy canes and pine trees and gunpowder, just like Shorter and Ash had that day when they enveloped her in a hug as thanks for letting them keep the dingy old tree they had found. “Our first Christmas tree.” She mumbled, her tongue suddenly dry. She let her eyes fall closed, the tears finally flowing at the memory.

_Our last Christmas together._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sensing a theme with me writing angst at the end :'(  
> Anyway, Nadia deserves better and her relationship w Charlie is wyld  
> Check out softaslans and her 12dobfmas promts [here](https://twitter.com/softaslans/status/1066057975431860226)!
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://candysams.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/candysamstwit)!


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